The Halo Effect
by Tobbs
Summary: The unthinkable has occurred. Two universes are about to collide and can be pretty confusing for the ones involved. What happens when a group of supersoldiers, trained solely on fighting aliens, finds themselves in the world of Mass Effect?
1. Prologue

The bullet went off and flew through the air at an almost ridiculous velocity. The small piece of metal pierced the skin, flesh and bone in the small grunt's forehead without difficulty, went through the small, gray lump of fat that was the alien's brain, and came out through the back of it's head and hit the pressurized gas canister that sat on the grunt's back, making a small crack appear at the joinings and links that kept the canister in place. The pressure of the gas was enough to crack up the rest of the joinings, making the canister shoot away like a bullet, hitting a brute in the head, cracking his skull. Naturally, the laws of physics made no exception on Reach, and the now dead grunt flew off as well, spinning uncontrollably in a random direction.

Lieutenant David Malcolme, AKA "Noble Six", let out an amused laugh as the alien corpse ran riot, flying out of control in the air, before the gas finally ran out and the grunt fell down to the ground and rolled down a hill and into a river, where it floated away in the streams, face down. David had always found it amusing killing aliens, something he and Emile had in common.

Ever since he was a little boy, he had been taught to hate the Covenant and every species that was a member in it. The funny thing was that all of the species in the galaxy that they knew of was a member of the Covenant; the grunts, the brutes, the elites, the hunters, the jackals and of course, the prophets. Only humanity was not a member of the dreadful alliance, since humans was seen as vermin that needed to be crushed.

Suddenly, David's Heads Up Display showed of a small drop in his shielding. The Spartan super soldier turned to where the attack had came from, and saw one of the few remaining aliens in that area, another grunt, making a last, desperate attempt to take down his shields with his little plasma pistol.

David let out another laugh at the hostile's pathetic attack. He jumped down from the large rock that he was standing on and began walking, completely calm, towards the terrified alien. As he got closer, the grunt tried to crawl away, as he realized that the human's shields showed no signs of overloading. However, his attempt at fleeing also failed, as the Spartan kicked the side of the grunt's gas canister, flipping him around on his back.

Since the canister was almost larger than the alien itself, it put him in a sitting position on the ground and he could have just stood up and walked away if it weren't for two fatal factors: first, the alien's left leg was severely damaged and, therefore, useless. Second, he had an armored human right in front of him, holding a DMR battle rifle right in front of his face.

David smiled under his helmet as the pathetic little being on the ground in front of him began pleading for his life. In the corner of his eye, the human caught sight of something to his left and looked to see what it was. There he saw Emile, sitting on one of the many rocks that was up on that particular cliff on the mountain they where on, obviously waiting for a nice, gory kill. David knew that, under that round, orange EVA helmet, Emile was smiling as much as him, if not more.

"What should we do with this one, you think?" David asked the other human, while still holding his rifle in front of the pleading alien on the ground.

The man called Emile shifted his position on the large, light gray rock. The jagged skull that the man had carved out of his full covering visor reflected the light of the setting sun of the planet of Reach, giving it a delicate silver color. "What do you mean `what should we do with this one´?" he laughed. "Just blow the fuck's head off!"

David looked down with disgust at the alien on the ground, then back at Emile. "Alright..."he said. "I can do that." his words where followed by a gunshot and the alien's body went limp as the bullet dug it's way through his skull, spraying luminescent, light blue blood on the green grass.

Emile gave out a light chuckle as he got up from the stone he was sitting on and turned around to walk to where the rest of the team where. "I like your style, Six."he said with satisfaction and walked towards Kat, who was trying to get a comm link up; the signal was a little problematic on this height.

David put his rifle on his back and spared a last glance on the body of the creature he had just executed. He took off his helmet and spat at the dead Covenant soldier, the walked over to and sat down on a large stone that was just by the edge of the cliff. He put his helmet next to him and studied the landscape; they had cleared the site so he had not to worry of getting shot in the back. He looked down the great steep that was by the end of the cliff. He made a long whistle as he looked down the steep that went almost diagonally to the ground, almost a kilometer down.

In the distance, he could see the mountains point up in jagged forms in the horizon. Down in the valley below the mountain, he could see UNSC troops move in on a Covenant base; easy task now that he and the rest of Noble team had disabled the mortar positions spread across the mountain. He heard the distant, mechanical throbbing of engines as the Scorpion tanks plowed through the great grassy plains, destroying anything in their path. He felt the cold bite his cheeks and the wind blow through his cropped, black hair. The large scar that ran down his face, from the right side of his forehead and across his face, right next to his right eye and over the right corner of his mouth and ended at his chin, was burning from the dry cold of the mountain, but the man ignored it; this was the only chance he would get to rest in a long time, and he wanted to enjoy the moment.

"Hey, Six!" David heard the voice of the large man named Jorge say as a large hand land on the right shoulder of his maroon red armor. "What you doing out of your helmet?"

David turned his head to look at the man next to him; he did not hold his face a secret, yet no one in Noble team had seen how he looks like. That was by the simple reason that he hadn't have any occasion to take off his helmet.

Jorge took a hasty step back as he saw the large string of scar tissue that went down David's face, that had now gone bright red due to the cold mountain wind. "Woah! You got some nasty scar there!"

David frowned as he pointed at the large scar that went across half his face. "Oh, you mean this one?"he said in a playful tone.

Jorge sat down on a rock to David's right, put his heavy machine-gun to his left and he too took of his helmet and put it next to him. "Yeah. How'd you get it?"

David chuckled silently as his memories traveled back to that day all those years ago. He pointed at the scar again. "Before you ask: no, I didn't get it in some epic battle against the Covenant. I actually got it when I was a UNSC marine and had a leave of absence." When Jorge raised an eyebrow, as if asking him if he was serious, David let out a short laugh. "Yeah, I know. Sounds weird. I was bored and began playing around with my throwing knife and..." he shrugged. "...well.."

A wide smile spread across Jorge's face and he slowly shook his head. "It seems the scar is more intimidating than it's story." the large, bearded man laughed. David nodded, a big smile on his face.

Suddenly, David could hear the sound of Pelican jet engines in the distance. Behind him, he heard Carter's, the leader of Noble team, voice. "Alright Noble team, we've got a new assignment, so gear up!"

David looked at Jorge, who returned the glance. "Come on. Get that helmet back on and let's go."he said and put on his own helmet, hiding any potential face expressions of amusement over David's grand story.

David picked up his helmet. He looked at the reflection of himself in the visor. The orange color of the visor turned his green, almost emerald eyes into a golden tone, as it did with his, only slightly tanned, skin. He noticed, to his annoyance, that the stubble on his chin had grown even thicker and he let out a short sigh. _"Nowhere for a man to shave himself these days."_ He turned his helmet and put it back over his head, reactivating his HUD, which began running diagnostics of suit function. To no surprise, everything was green and David walked over to Kat, who was standing by the pelican, who had now arrived, waiting for him.

"Alright team..."Carter said after about five minutes in the air. "The Covenant have apparently opened a portal of some sort. How they did it or where it goes, we don't know, but if they made it, it means that we want it." David nodded. So did everyone else on the Pelican.

"What are we gonna do?"Emile asked. "Destroy it?" Everyone looked at Carter, for some reason curious for an answer.

Carter shook his head. "No. Our orders are to capture it from any potential Covenant forces. The guys on the top takes it from there."Once again, everyone made a confirming nod.

As they flew over a large plain, they caught sight of a large portal right in the middle of the plains of grass, it's jagged shape giving it a look of a blue, shining rift in reality. "My god..."Kat said, astounded over the sight. "The thing's huge!"

David nodded. "No kidding; it's the size of a goddamn Corvette."

As the Pelican landed, David was surprised to not have run into a welcoming party yet. Jorge must have thought the same thing. "Not much activity here..."the heavy weapons specialist said.

David stopped to take a look at the huge phenomenon that stretched high up in the sky. As they made their way up the hill in front of them, David heard an occasional cracking sound as he stepped on some plant here and there. They finally made their way up the hill, and noticed that the area was completely empty of hostiles; not a covvie in sight. Unexpected. Carter looked at the rest of the team. "Hm...this might be much easier than I thought. Let's move out."

The walk over to the portal took much longer than any of them had anticipated; the mere size of the portal made them completely loose track of distance. After about ten minutes they where standing only a few yards from the great anomaly. David had hard to believe that they hadn't met any resistance. _"If the Covenant makes the effort of making a portal in the middle of fucking nowhere, why can't they bother guarding their stuff?"_

"Well that was easy."Carter suddenly broke the silence. "How about we call the command now eh?"

As Kat was trying to make the radio work, David was sitting in the grass, watching the mountains in the horizon and listening to Jun and Jorge debate something behind him. The calm was broken, all of a sudden, by a loud, frustrated grunt from Kat. "I can't get the comm working. The...portal...must be interfering with the signal; it's totally dead."

"Well ain't that just great?"Emile said and picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at the strange portal.

Suddenly, as the strange gateway absorbed the small rock, the ground began shaking violently. Carter turned to Emile. "What the hell did you do now, Emile!"

The man with a skull on his visor had no time to answer the question, as the portal suddenly lit up and a bright, blue light began spreading in all directions. David had no time to react before the light surrounded him and the rest of his team, and he suddenly felt like he was flying. He noticed that he suddenly was in something that could only be described as a worm hole, getting thrown around in random directions; the rest of Noble team was nowhere to be seen. David tried to figure out what was going on, but found himself not being able to think. After about a minute of freefall, the whining sound in his ears began loosening. _"Must be close to the end. Soon I'll find out where that end is."_


	2. Chapter 1:Origin unknown

Shepard opened her eyes and stared into the ceiling of her private quarters. Through the large window, she saw the stars slowly and silently pass by and made her wonder how fast they where actually going. The room was dead silent, except the occasional dripping from the tap in the bathroom.

The only light in the room came from Shepard's fish tank, which was practically filled with little swimming creatures from different worlds. It had proven much easier keeping them alive now that Kelly Chambers fed them while Shepard was away. She had managed to keep them alive for so long that some of the fish had even produced some offspring.

A loud snore broke the peaceful silence. Shepard turned her head to the right, where a large turian was lying, soundly asleep on his side with his head turned towards her. Shepard turned to her side and felt the sheets soothe her half-naked body. The woman put up her arm next to her and rested her head in the palm of her hand. She gave a soft smile as she studied the man that was lying in her bed. She watched his chest rise and lower and his mandibles twitch slightly as he breathed in and out, making short, but loud snores. Violent. Loud. Broken humor. That's the Garrus she loved.

Shepard looked at the clock that was standing on the drawer next to her. The digital pointers showed "2:45 am". Shepard sighed; she had been lying there for almost three hours now and hadn't slept a minute. She sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the mattress. She picked up the shirt that was lying on the floor. She studied the black and white garment and the Cerberus icon that was on the shirts sleeves, by the shoulders. Now that Shepard had severed all connections with Cerberus, she thought that she would have to get a new uniform as soon as possible.

Shepard quickly slipped into her uniform and threw a last glance at the sleeping turian. She studied the rising and lowering chest of the man one more time with a smile, before she stood up and walked towards the elevator.

As the cart came into movement, Shepard thought over what she could do to pass time; she wouldn't be able to sleep for a good while, that's for sure. _"I wonder if this is how Tali feels most nights..."_

The elevator doors opened on the third floor and Shepard walked into the mess hall, where the mentioned quarian was actually sitting at the table, fumbling with her omnitool. "Hey Tali. Couldn't sleep neither?"Shepard said as she sat down at the table, in front of the young quarian.

Tali looked up from her omnitool and at the woman in front of her. "Oh...hey Shepard. No, it's still a little too quiet."

Shepard sighed. "Tali, we've been over this. We're friends; just call me Jane."she said. "What are you doing by the way?"

Tali let out a small laugh and closed her omnitool. "Yeah, but you know, old habits die hard."the quarian leaned in and rested her head on top of her hands. "As for what I'm doing, I was just surfing on the extranet, trying to kill some time. Now that you're here though, I have someone to talk to."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Oh do you now?"she said, faking a serious voice and looked at Tali with a mysterious expression on her face, like she was going to sink through the floor and Tali would have no one to talk to after all.

"I've told you to stop doing that!"Tali laughed over Shepards silly behavior. "Yet again, you've told me to call you Jane."When Tali had calmed down from her laughter, she leaned back in her chair, hooked her hands together and place them on her stomach and crossed her legs. "Anyway, how's it going with Garrus?"she asked with a cheerful tone.

The thought of the turian that was still soundly asleep in her bed brought a smile to her face. "Well it's a whole other thing than with humans, I can tell you that."Now Shepard leaned in over the table. She corrected a little bit of her blonde, long hair that was hanging in front of her face, before returning her attention to Tali.

"Can be a little...pointed...experiences sometimes, am I right?"Tali asked with a now playful tone in her voice. She continued when Shepard gave a confirming nod, smiling. "Nah, I don't think turians are anything for me; I wouldn't really want to lose my virginity to a sharp pole."she joked.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You're gonna start talking dirty now, Tali?"she asked, close to laughing.

Tali gave out a light chuckle. "No, I think I'm pretty much done now."the quarian said. Shepard could hear on her voice that she was also close to laughing.

The two young women looked at each other, before breaking out in a loud guffaw. Shepard liked talking with Tali. They had the same kind of humor and no subject was two dirty or unfitting to bring up. Both of them could talk for hours about pretty much anything, something the men on the ship could apparently not understand. Tali was actually a little more like a sister to Shepard, rather than a friend.

Shepard wiped a tear off her cheek when their laughing fit finally ended. Tali let out a happy sigh. "Ahh...my jaw hurts. Maybe we can get some sleep now?"the quarian mechanic giggled.

"Sorry, but no: you can't."Joker's tired voice interrupted their conversation over the speakers. "We received some strange signal from a planet not too far from here and if I know you right Shepard, we'll not get any sleep for a while now."

Shepard looked at Tali and shrugged with an innocent smile on her face. She then turned her attention to the pilot. "You know me right, Joker. Let's go check it out."

A loud yawn was heard from the speakers, followed by Joker's voice. "Aye aye commander. Setting course for strange signal. ETA two hours. Shepard, Tali, you better get something to cover your ears with."

Shepards eyes widened. She knew exactly what the pilot meant by that. Tali didn't seem like she did though, as Shepard saw that behind her visor, Tali raised an eyebrow. "What does he mean by that?"the mechanic asked as Shepard began searching for something to cover her ears with; hands would not be enough this time.

Shepard looked at the young woman who was, unlike her, still sitting at the table. "Joker has bought himself an air horn, which he plans to sound off in the speakers to wake the crew."

Tali looked questioning at Shepard. "Air horn? What's an air..."she was cut off by a long, loud honk which filled every corner of the ship and hurt in Tali's ears. Since the sound was so sudden, Tali jerked violently and flew off the chair she was sitting on. The sound was followed by annoyed groans and a little angry shouting from the crew who where still in their sleeping pods.

As Tali raised her head from the floor, slightly shocked over what just happened, she saw the very tired crew getting out of their pods and to their stations while Joker was going on through the speakers with things like "Yeah, yeah. Whine,whine".

Shepard stepped over to her, where she lied on the floor, looking up in the ceiling. "That, my dear friend Tali, is the sound of an air horn."

Tali felt like she was going crazy on Joker; he had come up with one annoying idea after another for as long as she could remember. Her hands tensed as they turned into fists. "I. Will. Kill. Him."

"I recommend you don't"Shepard laughed as she helped Tali up to her feet. "At least not until we're done with this. You okay, by the way?"

"Yeah."Tali said as she was standing once again. "Yeah, I'm okay. Let's go."

...

A light hiss was heard as the sealing clamps shut when the helmet took it's place over Shepards head. The woman turned to Garrus, who had just got his helmet on as well. She nodded at the turian and to Tali who was next to him, before she stepped into the Kodiak shuttle. As she sat down, Tali and Garrus established themselves in the seats in front of her. They didn't say anything. She didn't say anything.

After about ten minutes of flight, Garrus finally broke the silence. "What do you think we'll find down there?"

Shepard turned to the turian. "I don't know. The signals wouldn't be strange if we knew what it was."she said, stating the obvious. The turian nodded and the silence overtook the shuttle once again.

They where already inside the atmosphere of the planet and not even a hundred meters above the ground, so Shepard could safely open the door to the shuttle and study the landscape. As the door opened, a wave of heat hit them, combined with an intense dryness. The entire planet seemed to be a desert. Dunes of sand stretched hundreds of meters above the ground and they where in constant change. The signal had died out long ago, but they had the position of origin of it. Shepard found herself unable to imagine what could have triggered such a signal in the middle of the desert.

Shepard opened her omnitool and looked at the time. _"5:57 am. It's been a couple of hours now."_

The shuttle landed and the trio disembarked into the hot, dry sand. Shepard waved for her companions to follow her as she began climbing a sand dune in front of her.

The yellow sand proved to be surprisingly easy to walk on, as their feet barely sunk at all while they slowly closed in on the top of the large dune. The planet seemed to be completely dead; finding something of any particular interest was unlikely.

As the trio got close to the top, they suddenly heard something that Shepard thought sounded like talking, only it wasn't in any language she had heard before. Neither did it sound like it could be spoken with the vocal cord of any of the known species in the galaxy; not even Shepard's translator could understand it. Shepard looked over to Garrus on her right, who seemed to just as surprised of the sound. "What is that?"she heard Tali, who was to her left, ask rhetorically. The trio lied down in the sand and began crawling up the dune. The sound of what seemed to be a conversation had grown stronger. Shepard knew that it had to be near. Very near.

As they made it to the top, what Shepard saw made her jaw drop. She looked at Tali, then at Garrus, but they seemed just as shocked over the sight.

There stood two creatures, only around two meters from them. Their backs where turned to the trio and they seemed to be either watching the view or guarding something. Maybe they where a lookout, which meant that they did both. Their skin had a tone of orange and their head was shaped as something Shepard could only call a dog or a jackal. The two beings where intelligent, that's for sure. They where wearing some sort of black armor with a complicated pattern that neither of the three recognized. In one of their hands they both held a strange, small weapon that kind of looked like a pistol by the basic structure. In the other had they held a large handle, from which something that looked like a large shield shot out of. They where also, like Shepard had guessed, conversing in some strange language.

One of the creatures turned his head a little to the right and said something to his companion that seemed to be a question. Shepard's mouth dropped a second time when she saw that the creature's eyeball, at least the one that she saw, was completely white. When it turned it's head the other direction, she saw that it was the same on the other eye. Even though they had no pupils, they seemed to have no problem seeing. They where, to say the least, strange creatures.

Shepard jerked when the upper half of the head of the creature that she had just seen the eyes of disappeared in a cascade of dark purple liquid that Shepard guessed was blood. The other creature seemed just as surprised, as it jumped a large step back from his companion, before quickly putting up his shield towards the direction the shot had came from. The defense proved worthless however, as another shot pierced the handle of the shield, which destroyed the whole thing, practically blew up his hand and carved out the creature's brain from it's cranium. The squad of three managed to avoid most of the gore by pressing themselves to the ground. When they looked up again, Tali made a silent, disgusted "Ugh" as she discovered that a severed finger had decided to land right in front of her face.

The shooter was nowhere to be seen and the shots had not even been heard at all, which brought Shepard to the conclusion that he or she had been shooting from a great distance. From that distance, the sniper had still managed to create such a bloodbath. Nasty, but impressive.

"Which do you think was on our side?"Shepard heard Tali's voice ask from her left. "The shooter...or the shot?"

Shepard suddenly felt sick when one of the creature's head suddenly turned by it's own weight and faced her and she saw the gored skull of it; despite how many times Shepard had seen things like this, she never got used to it; no one with a sane mind would. "I suspect that we in fact just ended up as the third side."said Garrus

Shepard nodded. "Probably. I suggest that we don't let that sniper see us; I don't want to find out about sides the hard way. We'll go around."

* * *

David slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying on his stomach in hot sand. He looked around and saw nothing but dunes around him and a hot sun in the sky. _"Well I know that Reach's summers can be pretty hot but..."_

The memories then hit him like a lightning bolt on Frankenstein. The memories of what had happened just recently. The outpost on the mountain, the portal and how badly Emile fucked up. Then his trippy transport to wherever he was now.

David slowly stood up and took another look of his surroundings. He noticed his DMR lying, half buried in the sand a few yards in front of him. He walked over to the rifle and picked it up. It was much warmer than it should be. David realized that he must have been lying there for a pretty long time, since it appeared that a sandstorm had swept by and scratched the surface of the metal on it as well.

He looked at the small screen on top of the rifle that shows the ammo containment. _"Four rounds...better reload."_he oriented his hand towards the small bag of clips that he used to carry around by his waist. His limbs froze as he felt nothing but air by his belt. He looked down to where it should be and his fears where confirmed: he must have dropped his bag during his trip that can only be taken otherwise if you're on drugs (only difference is that you won't end up anywhere particular if you're on drugs except maybe the morgue). He took a final look around, to see if he had maybe missed a few clips scattered around the area. Nothing. He looked back at the screen on the rifle. _"Correction: Four rounds...better make'm count."_

David stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a grunt down on the other side of the relatively small sand dune that he had just made his way upwards. He wasn't surprised to find the Covenant there; he was actually more surprised to find a lonely grunt, cowardly as they where. _"They must be the ones that where supposed to guard it. One of them probably fucked up like Emile did. But what's this one doing out of his platoon?"_

The grunt had his back turned to him, luckily; he wouldn't have to waste a bullet on this straggler. The dune was not very high; only a couple of meters. He would have no trouble taking the grunt out silently. He put his rifle onto his back.

David quickly jumped down behind the grunt, threw his right arm around the alien's neck and swept away it's legs with a kick of his respective leg. The wrestling competition lasted only a few seconds before David broke the little being's neck with a bone-snapping twist. Unfortunately for David, he accidentally overexerted his twist and made one of the alien's cervical vertebra's protrude from the side of it's neck, somewhere near the carotid artery, splattering light blue blood on his armor with a strange sound of bursting flesh. David then used the word that best expressed the situation: "Gross..."

In the short wrestling, David had ended up in a position that had him sitting down in the sand, holding the dead grunt in his arms. He threw away the corpse and it began rolling down the rest of the way down the dune, it's vertebra clearly visible. Unfortunately for David, while the dead alien was rolling down the hill, a certain point on a plasma grenade around it's belt touched the ground, activating it.

The grenade went off and the dead grunt flew down the rest of the way; those armors aren't as useless as you think. From behind some other dune, David heard the guttural grunting of a brute. David rushed back up the dune he was sitting on and just managed to take cover before a jackal, a brute and an elite zealot stormed out from behind their respective dune. They stopped up at their mutilated comrade, studied the twisted expression on it's face, the torn apart throat and the missing chunk of flesh and bone that the grenade had taken off.

The elite was on his way to raise his sight at the dune in front him, where David was, when they apparently heard some noise from someplace behind them. They where quick to react and turned around, weapons drawn, only to see a grunt come out from behind the same dune that they where behind. The elite, who was apparently the leader of the pack, told the grunt to address himself; David had heard elites use the same word before when they did just that.

David realized that he had his chance, and once again jumped down from the dune and time suddenly slowed down. He started by stabbing the elite in the back, kicking it on it's leg, breaking it and bringing it down to it's knees, pull out his knife and stab the large alien in the head. The zealot was dead before the others had time to react. As the jackal turned, David kicked it in it's head, sending it to the ground. He then fired his DMR at the brutes face. The bullet pierced the brute's head, bounced back on it's bullet proof helmet and pierced the head again on another place, before the brute's weapon had even been turned in his direction. _"Three..."_ David then lifted his knife and threw it at the grunt that had arrived from behind the dune.

As the cold metal blade buried itself in the grunt's cranium, David turned his attention to the jackal he had just kicked. The kick had sent the Covenant foot soldier in a state of half-consciousness. The human corrected the alien's state by kicking it again, this time under it's chin. The second kick threw the jackal's head back at such a grade, it's spine shot out of it's throat.

As he watched his recent work, a smile grew on David's face. _"Yeah, I'm a Spartan alright; not even winded."_

The Spartan put his rifle on his back and walked over to the grunt, about ten yards away, that was in possession of his knife. He placed his right foot on the grunt's chest and pulled the blade out of the alien's head. He wiped off a little brain substance and what he thought was a small piece of an eyeball. When the human was satisfied with the results, he put the knife back into the sheath on his shoulder. He then continued to explore the area.

As he walked past a particular dune, he saw something orange shine in the sand on the dune's side. He stepped over to the strange, shining thing, to see what it was. As he got within an arms range, he saw that the thing that was shining was actually the visor of a helmet. A Spartan helmet.

A hand suddenly shot out of the sand and grabbed his throat. As it dragged him in close of the visor, he heard a familiar voice speak from underneath the helmet. "You should know by now that curiosity can get you killed, Six."

"Hello, Jun."David said to the Noble team sniper. "What you hiding in the sand for?"

The sniper let go of his throat and sat up, causing sand to fall of him like a waterfall. "Waiting for an enemy as stupid as you to do what you just did."

"Nice to see you too..."David said as he caressed his now hurting neck. "Seen the rest of the guys?"

Jun shook his head and looked in the direction David had came from, like he expected them to pop up from the ground. "No. Haven't seen Kat neither. Just a few Covenant troops and a lot of sand. Speaking of which: I've spotted a guard post from this dune here."he pointed at the one he was currently sitting on. "Come on."

"Right in front of us, about fifteen hundred yards away."he said and pointed in the direction indicated.

David zoomed in with his helmet and saw at first nothing but sand. After around ten seconds though, he saw two jackals standing on top of a large sand dune, seeming to be in a conversation.

"Let's see if I still got some aim in me."he heard Jun next to him. The words where followed by a gunshot from Jun's sniper and the upper part of the head on one of the jackals suddenly disappeared. David saw the other guard jump a large step back from his companion, before raising his energy shield. He heard Jun's voice next to him. "Watch this..."followed by another gunshot. After a second, the bullet reached the guard, split the handle on his shield and practically blew off the hand and blew the brain out of it's skull.

David let out a short laugh. "Nice shot!"he said, although he knew that he would find any shot that killed a jackal nice. He zoomed out his sights and looked at the sniper.

Jun put his sniper rifle on his back and turned to his comrade. "Come on. There's a sandstorm coming in. We should get to somewhere open; I don't want these dunes to collapse on us."

* * *

Tali screamed as she was thrown away several meters by some large gray beast, of which species she had never seen before. She didn't know what it was and she didn't care. All she knew was that it, together with a group of his kin, had attacked as soon as they saw them. Most of them had went for Shepard, while just a few had charged her and Garrus.

In the middle of the chaos that resulted, a sandstorm had swept in, lowering sight to nothing. Tali had gotten separated from the rest while being chased by one of them that was wearing some kind of golden armor and carrying some huge kind of hammer.

After Tali landed in the hot sand, she flipped over on her back almost instantly and fired several rounds from her shotgun on the large alien, who had already made it over to her. The beast, the...brute...was thrown back by the blazing shotgun, but nothing more, as some kind of shield seemed to protect it. The quarian rolled to her side when the gray alien smashed his hammer into the ground, sending a large cascade of sand in all directions, as if with some kind of explosion. As she got back into a fitting position, Tali fired a few more rounds into the brute, finally taking it's shields down.

As the brute lifted it's large hammer to hit her, she aimed her shotgun at it's face, only to release a disappointing, dry click. Tali, not missing a beat, pulled her Carnifex hand cannon and shot, taking the beast's large helmet off, together with half it's skull. As the beast fell lifeless to the ground, Tali quickly crawled away from it, like it was going to decide to live, despite having half it's head shot away.

As she got to a distance from the corpse that she deemed sufficient, she placed her left hand over her chest. Her breathing was erratic, her heart racing and the hand holding the pistol shaking; this was the closest she had ever been the touch of death.

Tali stood up, walked over to her shotgun and picked it up. She cocked the gun and looked at her newest kill. She had never seen anything wrong on any of the species, except the batarians which she thought looked a little weird, but this? These creatures where not only ugly. They where downright grotesque. As where every species they had encountered on this planet so far. She had even seen one with four jaws, but no kinds of cheeks or chins whatsoever.

Tali suddenly heard something that sounded like footsteps behind her. She quickly turned around, but saw nothing but a brown, murky wall of flying sand. She looked in different directions as the sound seemed to be appearing from different places.

The quarian suddenly felt someone picking on her shoulder. She turned around, hoping it would be Shepard who had found her, only to be greeted by the round visor of a helmet, of which design was also unknown to her. On the visor, a large, gray skull had been carved out. Together with the helmet, she heard the voice of a man behind it. "Peekaboo!" the man said, before a black, armored hand stretched out of the wall of dust and hit her to the ground.


	3. Chapter 2:Unexpected alliances

David heard a annoyed grunt from Jun on his right as they walked in a ditch between two sand dunes. The wind was blowing from their left, so only a light cloud of dust was around them while the sandstorm was ravaging only a few meters above them. David looked at Jun on his right and saw him tapping his finger at his GPS, like it was going to make it work again. None of their equipment worked on this planet; GPS, radio, nothing worked. It was like they where too far away for any signal to be picked up, which was strange because UNSC signals stretched to the brinks of the human colonies, and even a bit into Covenant space. Where the hell were they?

"Any luck?"David heard himself ask. He didn't know why he asked it, since the answer was obvious: they would have to find the rest of Noble Team the hard way.

Jun turned his head to the left and looked at him. Although a helmet hid the snipers face, David knew that he wasn't happy. "Nothing..."the sniper stated. "No signal, just like with everything else on this piece of rock." Jun turned his sight back to the small road between the dunes. "I bet Kat's pretty pissed right now."he continued after a short while.

The last comment brought a smile to David's lips, and he gave an amused chuckle as he imagined Kat crouching in the sand, hammering on a piece of radio equipment with her hand, time after time.

As his mind stayed on the said woman, he remembered when she had told him of a part of her childhood. She had been a tech-freak back then too, tampering with almost any piece of technology she could get her hands on. Her parents hadn't been too fond of that. Especially not when she had picked something apart and couldn't puzzle it back together. David had always found Kat quite attractive, sexy even, but he had seen how she had looked at Carter. He knew, everyone except Carter knew, Kat knew that they knew, but no one had ever said anything.

David was about to answer Jun's comment, but was interrupted by sudden gunfire, not far to their left. It sounded like it came from a shotgun, but not of any model that he recognized. The sounds died off for a few seconds, only to be replaced by a single bang of another, louder sort. David looked back at Jun, who had stopped walking at about the same time as him, and was looking in the direction the gunshots had come from. Jun turned his head slightly and moved his glance from the dune to their side to David. They looked at each other for a few seconds before, without saying a word, beginning to climb the dune to their left.

When they got about halfway up the small dune, they heard silent sound of a voice. The voice was only murmur, either by the sandstorm or of distance. Whatever it was, it made it impossible to hear what the voice said or who it belonged to. It might even have been an illusion. That theory, however, was dismissed as the voice was shortly followed by the crystalline sound of cracking glass, like something making it's way through a glazing, but not making it completely through. The sound was accompanied by a loud, painful grunt from another voice. The voice of a woman.

After a few seconds, when David and Jun had made it further up the dune, they heard a familiar voice. David guessed that it was the same voice that he had heard before, only more clearly now. "Hold it right there, lady!"the voice said, or at least David thought it said so; it was still not entirely clear.

David threw a glance at Jun, who was right behind him to the left. He looked at the sniper, as to get confirmed that he had also heard it. "Emile?" was the only thing David could think of to say.

Jun shrugged. "Figures..."he said. "I've always pictured him as a woman abuser..." The comment made David smile for a quick moment, before he just as quickly forgot about it.

David darted with his eyes between Jun and the sound of the source a few times with his eyes inside the helmet, before waving at his companion to follow him. "Come on."he said, before continuing towards the top.

When he reached the top of the dune, David instantly saw two things: a dead brute chieftain lying right below the dune with half his head blown off, and Emile standing with his foot placed between the shoulder blades of a woman in a strange suit lying on the ground.

* * *

As Tali hit the ground from being knocked off her feet by the punch, she laid still a few seconds, trying to get a grip on what just happened. When she tried to get up, she instantly felt a boot settling down between her shoulder blades and pushing her back down on the ground. "Hold it right there, lady!"she heard the man that had punched her shout.

Tali felt anger boil up in her, but it was instantly washed away as she saw a large web of cracks spread around her faceplate; it could break at any moment. She somehow managed to quickly forget about the sea of cracks and instead concentrate her fear on a shotgun that had just been pressed against the back of her head.

"Hey! Emile!"the quarian heard the voice of another man shout from her right just as she thought the gun would go off. She looked to her right, only to see another human with armor of the same technology as the one with round visor, only that this man's armor was in some shade of read, and in another design. Tali turned her head slightly more and saw that the man with the shotgun was also looking at them. He was apparently called "Emile", and knew this other man.

"Well, well, well."the man called Emile said as another man, this one in green armor and a third design, appeared from behind the dune. "Six. Jun. What took you guys so long?"

* * *

"Oh, the usual..."David said and shrugged as he got closer to Emile. "Sand, failing equipment and Covenant troops..."

Emile chuckled amused as he grabbed the woman he had captured, and pulled her up, just a little too high for her to stand on her knees. "Yeah, happens every day, doesn't it?"

"Who's this?"Jun asked as he caught up with David, drawing the looks of everyone around, including the woman that Emile had in his left hand.

Emile turned his glance to his prisoner. "What, this one?"he said and pulled her up slightly with his hand, only to let her fall back to her previous position. "Probably a new kind of Covenant soldier. A new member species."

David looked at Emile in disbelief. "What do you mean?"he asked as he studied the woman in Emile's grip. He shrugged "She doesn't look very alien." His eyes made their way back up to the round visor that covered his companion's head.

Emile looked at David for a few seconds, then quickly placed his left leg behind the woman's and swept them away while letting go of her with his hand. "Look at her..."he said as the woman hit the ground with a thud, accompanied by a light groan.

David slowly stepped in front of the woman and studied her body, while Emile stepped back behind her. At first he saw nothing odd with the prisoner, but after a short while, through the murky wall of flying sand, he saw that her hands had only three fingers, her feet three toes, one of them close to her heels, and her legs where very curved. David frowned as he studied the woman, who obviously was an alien. His glance traveled up to her helmet. He saw the small silver dots that he guessed where her eyes darting between him, Emile and Jun nervously behind the cracked glass. She seemed afraid. Afraid to move, afraid to speak, if she even knew their language, which was doubtful. Afraid for what they might do to her. Although it didn't matter how afraid she was. She was an alien, which meant she was with the Covenant. Those who are with the Covenant dies.

David raised his DMR to the alien's face to end her existence. When the rifle reached it's position in front of the woman's forehead, she froze, and her silver eyes locked themselves at him. Strangely, David didn't feel the familiar warm feeling that he usually got when his enemy stared into the eyes of death. It was even like he didn't want to shoot. That he just wanted to throw his rifle away and leave. He didn't really want to do it, but she was the enemy, so he would do it. His finger began to slowly squeeze the trigger.

* * *

Tali's heart froze as she suddenly stared down the barrel of a battle rifle, and time seemed to slow down, but instead of looking straight into her death, she placed her glance on the large visor of the helmet of the wielder of the gun. Underneath the light orange glass, she felt the man's eyes stare at her. To her surprise though, the man seemed to hesitate over firing his rifle, if only for a few seconds. No one moved. Not her, not any of the three men in front of her, but she heard the light sound of the man's finger tightening around the trigger. The other alien she had just killed was a close call, but it would take a miracle for her to survive this. A miracle or extreme luck, both where welcome.

"I recommend you don't, Six."the voice of a woman broke the silence, and everyone's eyes where drawn to where it came from. The man called Emile quickly turned around with his shotgun at the ready. The man seemed on his guard, which wasn't surprising considering that they where probably used to fighting the aliens that Tali had seen on this planet.

There, right in front of them, stood a woman with the same kind of armor as the other three. Although the sandstorm still decreased eyesight dramatically, Tali could just see that the woman's armor was in some kind of blue-green. They all seemed to have different colors of their armor. Why, she could only guess.

"Kat?"the man, who was apparently called "Six", said as he lowered his rifle away from Tali's face. The man who had punched her slowly lowered his shotgun and got back into a normal stance with his gun sidelong over his chest. Although the man clearly tried to seem calm, it was obvious that he was still on guard. Taking him by surprise seemed to be a close to impossible task.

* * *

"And why shouldn't we shoot her?"Emile asked and took a couple of steps towards Kat, while she also began closing in, although she was walking towards the woman on the ground. At first, David thought that Kat ignored Emile, but when she finally got over to their prisoner, she answered.

"Because she's not Covenant."Kat said without even throwing as much as a glance at Emile. Her eyes where fixated at the alien on the ground. Although David couldn't see Kat's face, her voice was flowing with curiosity over this new, mysterious species. She had always seemed to have an urge to learn about new things, and this was obviously something extra for her.

"Bullshit!"Emile was very quick to dismiss her claim with a word he often used, although this was the first time he had said that to Kat. She was almost always right.

David took a moment to study the alien a short while further. He also found it unlikely of an alien that wasn't with the Covenant, but he felt more curious to the matter than what Emile seemed to be. He lowered his gun further and took a step back. "Why are you so sure?"he asked.

Kat looked at him, and he got a picture in his head that a sly smile had just appeared on the woman's face. She made a final study of the alien on the ground before turning her glance up in the dark, murky sky. "Well...first off, she doesn't use Covenant technology..."she placed her right index finger on her left, like she was beginning to count up from a long list. "She was attacked by -and killed- a brute chieftain..."her right finger moved from the left index finger to the middle finger. "She looks very humanoid in form; the brutes where barely allowed to join the Covenant because they reminded a bit of humans. And the clearest detail..."her right finger ended up at her last left one. "The Covenant doesn't allow women to fight."

Kat's statement made everyone stand silent where they where, and David was looking at her with his eyes shot open. Even Emile seemed a bit unsure. The only one moving was the alien, who seemed to dart her glance between all four of them, like she was searching for any signs that someone would kill her anyway.

Emile was the first to break the silence. "Fine." he didn't seem happy with accepting the fact. "She's not a covvie. Then what is she?"

Kat turned around, looked at Emile and shrugged. "I don't know."she said. "And we'll probably never find out..."David heard in her voice that she was a bit disappointed over that fact.

"What about her name?"David turned to Jun who was standing to the right, a yard or two behind him. He had almost forgot the sniper's presence, until he finally made his comment in the debate. "Covenant members have a special sort of names that they get when they are recruited into the army..."the man in green armor continued.

Emile made a light chuckle, which brought everyone's eyes back to him. "Yeah, good luck finding that out!"the man laughed. "You could make a grunt think you're praying or something, by saying 'bootlaces'!"

David raised his eyebrow over Emile's strange example, but Kat seemed to ignore the man's oddness. "Yeah. There's no way we're gonna find out her name. She wouldn't be able to understand us for a..."

"T-Tali..."a new voice interrupted Kat, and everyone slowly turned to the alien behind her. "M-My name's Tali..."the woman stuttered. Everyone froze, all of them seeming just as shocked over the event. The alien began nervously darting between them with her silver eyes, seeming afraid that she'd just made a fatal mistake. "...penny..."Kat finally managed to end her sentence, although she had already been proved wrong.

David stared at the woman, as did everyone else. "What the fuck?..."was all he managed to say. He had never imagined to meet an alien that didn't want to destroy humanity. Much, much less meet one who could speak English. If the scientists at ONI would know of this, they would go absolutely crazy. They would run around for days in their labs, testing, calculating, the aura of the area screaming "Science! Science! Science!"

"Hold it right there!"the voice of a woman -a new voice- shouted from their left, drawing all their attention away from the woman sitting in the sand. While they turned to the source of the sound, they instinctively pulled up their guns, ready to face a flying missile, if need be.

However, instead of a flying missile, David saw two new people standing in front of them, about five meters away, also having their guns up and ready. Like the woman's shotgun though, these two guns where nothing David had ever seen before. One of the new characters was a woman with blond hair -that was all he could see through the wall of flying sand; no particular facial features could be seen. He noticed that her armor was also unlike anything he knew of, as was the armor -and species- of her companion. In her hand, she held a weapon that looked like some sort of SMG, by the basic structure, and her body was glowing lightly in some strange, blue light.

Next to the unknown woman stood another alien. It's waist was extremely slim and instead of skin, it had some kind of scales in some tone of dark green that covered it's entire head, as far as David could see. On it's head, it had some strange sort of visor that only went to it's left eye. Although it could be extremely hard to determine gender at some aliens, David guessed that this one was a man.

"Who the hell are you?"Emile spew out to the newcomers. David threw a short glance at the man, and saw that he was fully ready to run amok with his shotgun.

The woman with blond hair turned to her companion for a short moment. "Who the hell are you?"she then responded.

"We are members of Noble team of the UNSC "Spartan" program."Kat took to word after a few seconds. "Who are you?"

As the woman in front of them answered, the sandstorm began to calm down. "I'm commander Shepard of the Normandy."she said without ever lowering her gun. "I'm with the Alliance."

David frowned. This place was getting weirder by the minute. "I've never heard of the Alliance."he said. "Neither of you or the Normandy for that matter."

The woman named Shepard shrugged. "Well, I've never heard of neither Noble team, UNSC or any "Spartan" program."David was not really surprised to hear the woman say that. Everything seemed weird on this place.

Kat, who was standing to David's right, a little bit in front of him, dropped her head slightly and seemed to look down into the sand. "Something's wrong..."she said, drawing the attention of everyone around.

"What do you mean?"David asked, although he knew she was right. It seemed everything was wrong, but he couldn't understand why.

Kat turned to him. "We go through some strange portal, and end up on an unknown place, where we see new species, new technologies and much more stuff that we've never heard of!" By now, everyone was looking at Kat. They knew that she made a point. "The people here haven't heard of anything about the stuff we're with, neither."she continued. "Something's wrong."

David stared at Kat. The questions flew through his mind without answers. Nothing made sense. When he felt confusion beginning to strike him, he finally found a question that could give many answers. He turned to the unknown soldiers. "What year is it?"he asked, but he felt almost afraid for what the answer might be.

* * *

Shepard hesitated over the man's question. It was obvious they didn't belong here. She didn't want to know that the galaxy had gone weird. "The year is twenty-one-eighty-five."she said slowly, and immediately saw the confusion spread among the new soldiers. They where clearly from another time, judging from their reactions.

"Shit..."she heard the soldier in green armor, who appeared to be the team's sniper, say. "I'm pretty used to it being twenty-five-fifty-two..."

"Wait a minute!"another of the soldiers, a man with a large skull carved out on his visor, and a shotgun in his hands, said as he turned to Shepard. "Are you saying that we've been pushed back over three-hundred and sixty years!"

"No."said the woman in the group as she turned to the shotgun-armed man. "We can't have. Those things she mentioned has never existed in our history, and I don't think two different species..."she pointed at Garrus, then at someone who was on the ground behind them. "...would go extinct in this short time..."

If the soldiers said anything else afterwards, Shepard didn't hear it. She had just seen who the person sitting in the sand was: Tali. Tali with a cracked faceplate.

"Tali!"Shepard shouted and hurried to the quarian. As she got closer, the soldiers moved aside, letting her get to the woman. "Are you alright?"she asked when she got to her.

Tali slowly nodded. "Yeah, kinda. Nothing's missing, but that could change..."

* * *

David gave the two women in the sand a questioning look. "What does she mean 'nothing's missing'?" He scanned the rest of the team with his eyes. They seemed to wonder just as much of what's going on.

The woman named Shepard turned to him. "It's her faceplate."she said, and by the tone of her voice, it was clear that she didn't have much time for small talk. "Her species has almost no immune system. If the plate breaks, she'll die."

David's eyes shot open when he realized the situation. He didn't want one of the only allied aliens to die. "Anyway we can help?"he asked as Shepard began standing up. The alien, who was apparently named "Tali" also stood up, careful not to shake her helmet too much.

Shepard turned to him. "We can repair it aboard the Normandy. Although, we have to get to a bigger spot for an LZ, and I suspect that won't be easy here. Especially not with this "Covenant" around. We could use your help."

David saw Emile shake his head in front of him. "We ain't going nowhere without the rest of our team."he said. "You..."he was cut off by Kat.

"I saw a small Covenant base on the way here." she said. "I think we should start looking there. They had also plowed away large amounts of sand, enough to make a good landing zone for shuttles." she turned to Shepard. "That could solve both our problems, if our guys are there..."

David looked at the woman. "Why didn't you engage?"he asked.

Kat turned to him and he felt her eyes trying to bore a hole through his head. "Does it look like I have a gun? It was guarded by hunters. If I had engaged, I would be dead."

David nodded slowly and turned away his glance. "Hunters?"he heard Shepard say, which brought his eyes to her. "Is that also some kind of Covenant soldier?"she asked.

Emile nodded. "Yeah. Toughest of them all, actually. Maybe you've come across them? Large, blue armor. Orange blood. Cannon in one hand, shield in the other?" When Shepard shook her head, he continued. "Well then I gotta warn you: they're tough as hell. You need to shoot them in the back, where they have no armor. Thing is: all they need to kill you is a direct hit."

Shepard looked at the man. "Well, we have to risk it if we want to get out of here." she turned to Kat. "Where is this base?"

Kat shrugged. "It's not far from here."she said, and waved for them to follow her as she turned to the direction where she had came from. "Come on. I'll show you."she threw a short glance at Tali. "But I don't think your alien friend should be in the fighting if her immune system is as bad as you say, and her visor is on it's breaking point."

David turned to Emile. "Did you really have to hit her that hard?"he asked, as a simple off-side comment, to which the man inside the round helmet simply shrugged. It seemed that the unknown trio didn't hear him, or their commander would certainly have reacted badly. He looked at the trio, then back at Emile. "Does she even know how that woman's visor cracked?"he asked, to which Emile simply shrugged again.

* * *

Shepard turned to Tali, who was standing next to her. The commander shrugged. "Sorry, Tali. It seems you won't get to fight this one..."

The quarian somehow managed to spare a chuckle, despite her situation. "Oh, that's all right. I don't really feel like it by now, neither. Especially not if there's tougher things than that...thing...over there."she said and pointed at the body of a large, gray alien in golden armor a few meters to their left. Shepard looked at the body and raised an eyebrow when she saw Garrus standing next to the body with a satisfied look on his face, while looking at a huge hammer that the turian held in his hands.

Shepard decided to ignore the turian, and instead turned back to the quarian. "Well..."she said and tapped a certain spot on her KF Locust SMG, resulting in a metallic click, just to make the effect. "Let's pay this Covenant a visit."The comment brought a smile to the quarian's face, which made Shepard smile. She hadn't been able to figure out why yet, but Tali's smiles always seemed to be contagious.

Shepard saw over Tali's shoulder that the other soldiers, or "Spartans" as they where apparently called, had already almost disappeared behind a sand dune, about twenty meters away. "Dammit!"she spat out and hurried to catch up with the squad, with Garrus not far behind her with the hammer still in his hands.

Tali made a short laugh as she saw her commander and brother-in-arms run through the sand, one of them with a clumsy hammer in his grasp, that was just almost as big as himself. _"This wasn't really how I imagined this day to turn out..."_she thought as she began walking in the same direction as her companions. _"No. Not really how I expected it..."_

"_Just the way I like it..."_


	4. Chapter 3:Nemo relicta

Carter slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry and the back of his head pulsated with pain. He saw his helmet lie on the floor in front of his face, the visor staring at him like it had eyes of it's own. The Spartan noticed that he was lying in sand inside a Covenant shield bubble, specially designed to hold captives; a temporary prison. He noticed that he was lying on his stomach, tied up around his wrists and ankles.

He tried to sit up, which drained much energy from his already tired body. Eventually he succeeded, and then noticed that a grunt was staring at him through the bubble, seemingly disgusted over the human's appearance, yet at the same time fascinated over it.

Carter chose to ignore the alien's curious stare, and instead searched the area inside the bubble. He saw a large, familiar shape in heavy armor sit to his right, looking at something outside of the shield. "Jorge?"

Jorge turned around and looked at him. His face was grimy of dust and a small string of blood was running from the left corner of his mouth. He too was tied up, by some kind of energy cuffs apparently. "Boss..."the man uttered.

Carter took another look around. It seemed to be a camp of some sort; it was crawling with Covenant troops. There seemed to be two hunters in the camp. One was sitting on a Covenant weapon container, conversing with an elite. Covenant troops seemed to understand each other, despite being of different races. Maybe they had some kind of translator device? The other hunter had just joined the grunt in staring at the two humans. Carter chuckled at the thought that humans must look extremely weird to them.

Aside from the two hunters, there where also a small group of grunts chatting in a small ring. One of them held a strange purple fruit, from which the alien occasionally took a bite from, only to quickly reattach it's gasmask to it's helmet. He repeatedly heard one mention the word "Shóua", which meant "demon" in their native tongue. They where talking about them.

Carter looked in another direction and saw a group of jackals perform full-contact sparring in pairs, while a jackal officer supervised the whole thing. The officer interfered once when one was close to cut up the throat of his partner with a claw, making purple blood run down the soldier's neck. These jackals where probably training to become skirmishers, their top elite. The commander remembered when he had gotten into a fist-fight with a skirmisher. They had both beaten the crap out of each other, until the alien's body couldn't take it anymore.

To his right, he saw a couple of troopers playing something that seemed to resemble cards inside a tent, but Carter immediately lost interest in what they where doing; he was looking for a way to escape. When he found none, he turned back to Jorge. It would be good to pass the time by talking to someone. "Why do you think they put us in the same cell?"he asked.

Jorge shrugged plainly. "Who knows? Maybe they had just one?"the heavy weapons-specialist turned back to study the surrounding area. "What I want to know is: what do these bastards want with us? Covenant rarely takes prisoners..."the man stated. "If at all..."he added after a moment.

Carter threw an eye on a skirmisher who suddenly come running through the camp, towards some large tent that stands in the middle of the base. Right behind him comes a ghost with a dead elite zealot on a small wagon attached to the vehicle. As it got into the camp, the ghost slowed down, which allowed Carter to study the body as the vehicle drove past their cell. But not without a hateful stare from the grunt who drove the thing.

The zealot had two stab wounds on it's body, one in the back and one in the head, in addition to a broken leg. It didn't look like something Emile's kukri could do; Jun almost never used his knife, and Kat didn't have one. This was Six's handy work.

"Seems Dave's been having fun."Jorge said, who seemed to have noticed the same thing. Carter was going to answer, when he saw a pair of brute officers was walking towards them. The skirmisher had already made it inside the large tent, and other soldiers where already carrying the dead elite inside. It's only natural that they would question the prisoners next.

David pulled out his knife as he got near the top of the sand dune in front of him, where a skirmisher was apparently serving as a guard post. If so, then it was a bad guard post, as the guard was standing with it's back turned to him.

He grabbed the guard's shin and pulled the alien down to him, before holding him in a tight grip. David grabbed the alien's jaws so that it wouldn't scream as he slit it's throat. He saw the alien's eyes shoot open as he took his effort to cut through both of the carotid arteries as well as the trachea. The alien began throwing it's arms and legs around in panic as it's purple blood ran down David's arm.

"_This is taking too long!"_David thought after a number of seconds, and buried his knife between the skirmisher's eyes and twisted it, finally ending it's pain. He then threw the body down his side of the dune, before turning his attention to the rest of the team.

He saw Shepard darting her eyes a few times between him and the pool of purple blood that had spilled out in the sand. She then looked where she guessed his eyes where. "You certainly know how to kill..."she commented. David couldn't figure if it was meant as a positive thing. He decided to let it pass.

David looked right over the edge of the dune, and saw a camp full of Covenant. No one seemed to have noticed his kill. He turned back to the team and waved for them to follow, before carefully making his way to the top, where he would get a better view.

It was quite a large dune, and most of them could fit on the top, but they didn't need that many for scouting. He and Jun lied down on top of the dune, and the sniper picked up his binoculars.

David suddenly caught eyes of a brute carrying Carter towards a tent, and another brute struggling to get Jorge with him. Eventually, a hunter had to interfere when Jorge kicked the brute in the chin. The hunter had an easier time getting Jorge toward the tent. David pointed towards them. "There."he whispered to Jun right next to him. Jun adjusted his binoculars slightly, then removed them from their position in front of his eyes, looked at David and nodded.

David turned back to the others behind him, who sat impatiently waiting in the sand. "They got our guys."The man explained, which brought the attention of the others to him. "If we split up in small teams, we can surround them."When he said the last part, a fantasy of him being the one in charge passed through David's head.

"Alright, sounds like a plan."Emile said. "I'll go in from the east side. Anybody wanna tag along, go right ahead."He then headed towards a spot on their right with Kat close behind him. David looked at where he thought it would be most probable that they would take position, and saw a Covenant gun and ammo supply lying in the sand unguarded. _"Guess that's the reason Kat followed..."_

He turned back to the others. "Alright, let's go."

Carter hit his chin hard in the ground when the brute dropped him inside the tent, shortly followed by Jorge. When he sat up, he saw a brute in a golden armor with fancy decorations and patterns, and the right shoulder plate was formed as a feathered beast native to their homeworld. The blue light of a plasma battery danced across the polished surface of the animal. The socket that formed the eye caught the light, giving it a glimmer that almost made it look real.

The brute sat in a relatively simple throne with a large rack to his left, containing two gravity hammers, each decorated in it's own way with different symbols and patterns. To their sides where two brutes holding a gravity hammer in a way that spoke of discipline- at least higher than the average brute.

Carter turned to the brute with golden armor, who obviously was the boss for whatever mission they where on. When the Spartan looked the alien in the eyes, it snarled silently. The beast looked at his guards, and with a wave of his hand, they left the tent. The brute then turned back to his prisoners.

"What is this place you have brought us to?"it asked with another snarl.

Carter raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What?"he threw a quick glance at Jorge, then back at the alien, who had now turned it's full attention towards him. "You're the ones who took us here!"he almost shouted at the brute. "It's your damn portal! It's..."he was cut off by the alien in golden armor.

"Don't try to blame this on us, vermin!"the brute shouted loudly and furiously at him as he got up from his throne and stared at him. Rage burned in the alien's eyes from the apparent insult. "It is your demonic work that created that rift! You destroy the galaxy with your mere presence- you are the ones to blame!"His dark voice roared like thunder in the small tent.

"He's just messing with our heads, boss."Carter heard Jorge to his right, but the voice of the man didn't sound as sure as he would want to appear.

Carter was going to say something in response to the brute, but stopped when he realized that the alien was speaking English, despite that the punishment among the Covenant for speaking in the tongue of humans was death. He calmed down, as he noticed that he had planned on shouting. "How can you speak in our language?"he asked in a more silent tone; no need to anger this big guy.

The brute seemed to calm down as well, as he sat down in his throne again and leaned back with an amused smile. "I don't"he hinted. "To do so would be grave heresy. I am speaking in the tongue of my own people."his smile grew wider as he saw the human's confused looks. He once again got up from his throne and began pacing forth and back in front of them.

"Normally I wouldn't bother myself with explaining our technology to disgusting vermin..."he started, before his face broke up in a grin. "But I'll make an exception this once. While you where unconscious, we surgically installed small translating devices in the back of your necks. They automatically translate any language you hear into your own. However, there may be complications with the nervous-system in the start- you may have noticed a pulsating pain in your head..."

The alien suddenly stopped his pacing and turned his gaze back to them. "Now...about that portal..."he walked over to the rack on his side, grabbed the hammer on the top, and pulled it away with a sound of decreasing power, which made Carter notice that the hammers where kept in their place by nothing but a magnetic stasis. "You are going to tell me what I want to know..."the brute started as he began letting his hammer slowly drop into his other hand time after time. "And I swear, if you lie..."he bend over and came only a few centimeters away from Carter's face. "...I'll make sure there isn't enough left of you to fill a cup."

The threatening atmosphere that resulted was broken by a commotion outside, and the brute looked over Carter's shoulder and out of the tent, where gunshots where heard, both of plasma and gunpowder. _"Seems like the cavalry has arrived."_Carter thought.

The brute growled, placed a firmer grip on the handle of his hammer and walked with heavy steps towards the open tent flap.

Shepard looked down at the alien below her. Jun, as the man next to her was apparently called, had said that the species of the enemy below her was called an "elite" although it was not their real name. This one was also apparently a low-ranking officer, due to the horned helmet and the red armor.

She turned to Jun for a second, then tuned in her radio, which she had synced to work with the Spartans' radio devices. "Everyone in position?"she asked, to which the two other teams both gave an affirmative. She continued. "Alright, let's do this..."

Shepard waited for the right moment, then silently slid down the dune she was on, putting her right behind the elite. Just as the alien was going to turn around to see what had given that scraping sound, Shepard stabbed with her knife in it's back, making it scream in pain, drawing the attention of the rest of the camp. When the elite was dead, Shepard slid her left arm around the soldier's neck, holding the body up as a shield- normally the alien would be far too heavy, but she had biotics.

Her next kill was one of those little guys with light blue blood, which she put a number of SMG slugs in the chest of. On the other side of the camp, she saw the other teams glide down the dunes like she did and start killing, forcing the enemy to fight on several fronts at once.

Shepard stopped using her biotics to hold up the dead body, and instead threw it away like a projectile. The force of the impact was enough to put a big patch of purple blood on a large rock, as it crushed another elite that stood in the way. She then turned to her right and threw a warp-field at one of those so called brutes, making it fall in the sand with blood running out of his mouth. Shepard suddenly felt sorry for Tali for not being able to be a part of this; just a distant bystander. She knew the quarian liked the excitement of being in the heat of battle.

Shepard turned to her left just in time to see a so called grunt with a rocket launcher pointed at her get a sniper round in his head, delivered from Jun.

She pulled up another grunt from the ground with another field, before throwing the alien away with enough force to get sliced in half by hitting an energy sword that an elite held up in the air at an appropriate time. The alien that held the sword was distracted for a moment by the grunt hitting his weapon, which gave Emile a clear shot in the throat with his shotgun. She then caught the sight of a big figure exit a tent that was large than the others, with a hammer in his hands.

David noticed the brute that came out of the tent, and the brute noticed him. He had quickly depleted his ammo when the assault started, and there was no gun in reach at the present. He slowly pulled out his knife, which made the brute give an amused grin, revealing his sharp teeth. The brute then threw himself at the Spartan, his hammer ready to obliterate the man's skull.

David barely dodged the hammer that the brute swung towards his face. He made an attempt to cut a wound in it's hand deep enough to make the alien drop it's hammer. Unfortunately, his position was wrong as he dodged the hammer, and he only managed to make a barely bleeding scratch on the brute's hand. His opponent was quick to react, with giving another swing at him. But the human was simply too quick, and he once again missed.

David took his chance of being to the side of the hammer, and kicked the brute on the right hand, and by the sound of it, he broke a few fingers. The alien dropped the hammer, but his anger only increased. The brute didn't bother with picking the hammer back up, but instead gave a quick punch with his undamaged hand. A hand proved to be quicker than a hammer, as David didn't have time to react before he felt the hand hit his visor and he was sent flying through the air. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his visor had been smashed into pieces.

David turned around on his stomach and spat out a bit of blood and saliva that was absorbed into the sand. He heard the brute stepping over to him from behind him, laughing. Just as he was going to get up again, he got an idea. He intentionally started coughing and crawling through the sand, appearing to look much weaker than he actually was. He must have been good at it, since he heard Kat on the radio. "Six, you have to get up! You're going to get killed! Please, get up!"David heard a genuine worry in her voice. He didn't like the idea of making his friends worry for nothing, but this time it was necessary.

Just as the brute reached him, David picked up a large shard from the visor. He then felt a muscular hand grab him, turn him around and lift him up. He was now just above the brute's face. Perfect.

The Spartan gathered most of his strength in his leg and kicked the alien's helmet off it's head, then quickly pierced the brute's left eye with the shard, making the beast roar in pain as he dropped the man.

But despite what David thought would happen, his enemy only seemed angrier now. It made a lunge at him, but the alien was now acting on blind rage, and David easily avoided the brute, and then picked up a black rock from the ground, which he slammed into the side of the alien's head.

The beast fell to the ground, and David threw himself on top of him, continuing to hit the brute in the face as hard as he could. He had stopped thinking; he was driven by adrenaline, instinct and lactic acid. It all seemed needed, as the brute began bleeding heavily in the face, but showed no interest of dying.

The rock suddenly broke into a number of pieces, but David simply continued to hit the brute in the face, now with his face. He was growing tired of the brute simply growling after every hit. "Die! Fu-king die!"he screamed at the alien as he delivered the last three hits, before the brute's body finally went limp.

When David realized that he had won, and the brute was dead, he threw himself backwards off the body and sat in the sand gasping in exhaustion. His head pounded, blood ran down from his mouth, and it felt like every bone in his right hand was broken or dislocated. He also noticed that he had blood stains all over his armor and face, but he still couldn't get a decent grip on what he had just done.

"Six!"Kat shouted as she ran over to him. "Are you alright?"

David turned to her and saw a mixture of shock, fear, and worry in her eyes, as she had by some reason taken off her helmet. He tried to get up, but he was almost completely drained of energy. Luckily, Kat was there to help him up. He chuckled as he got to his feet. "Do I detect a hint of worry, Kat?"he teased, and his eyes found his way to hers. Kat's response was raising an eyebrow and slapping his chest with the back of her hand for his silliness.

"Hey, Six!"Emile shouted as he came running towards Kat and David. "You okay?" Then David noticed that they had emptied the camp of hostiles, and the others moved into the tent to find Carter and Jorge.

David turned to Emile. "Well...relatively, yes."he responded with a tired voice. He wasn't exactly alright, but it could have gone much worse.

Emile laughed; you could hear on his voice that he was impressed. "Yeah, no shit! It wasn't just his blood that flew as you punched him..."This made David look at his right hand, and saw that the small piece of armor there was gone, the glove was teared up and the skin on the knuckles had been ripped off.

"What's happening here?"He heard Carter's voice behind him, and he turned around to see the rest of the group walk towards them, and Carter had a surprised look on his face. But with the brutalized brute and the man standing torn half to shreds, covered in blood, one could add up two plus two.

"Dave here just beat this son of a bitch to death bare-handed!"Emile laughed as Carter got up to David.

Carter smiled and put his hand on David's shoulder. "If I could, I'd be slapping a medal on you right now, Lieutenant. Good job. But..."he tapped his finger at the maroon-red helmet that rested on David's head. "This is a JFO helmet. They're not cheap..."he commented, but you could tell that he wasn't serious.

David laughed. "No, sir." He then spit out a tooth that he hadn't even noticed was loose. "It certainly wasn't cheap."he added.

"Uh, yeah, it's happy and all, but I think we should really get back to the Normandy; we still have a quarian faceplate to repair."Shepard broke the cheering atmosphere when Tali closed in. David was surprised that the woman hadn't ratted on Emile. And also that Shepard hadn't asked. He was close to laughing when Emile switched topic with suggesting to call a shuttle.

As the shuttle landed in the sand, David took a last look on the area. There where a lot of Covenant bodies scattered throughout the camp. Red, purple and blue blood had been sprayed everywhere. A few body parts could also be seen spread around, among them the head of a hunter that was somehow ripped off. He put his hands on the sides of his helmet, and slid it off his head. _"No need for this anymore."_he thought and threw the helmet into the sand. The visor could be repaired, but he guessed that there was none of the required technology here to do it.

He stepped into the shuttle, where he squeezed himself in on a vacant spot between Jorge and Kat. He threw a glance on the woman to his right, and saw her looking at Carter with the familiar longing stare.

"Joker, we're soon there."Shepard spoke into her earpiece. "And we might bring a few more people than we left with.

David looked out the window for a short moment, and saw that another sandstorm was closing in. "Time to go, people."He heard Carter say, and the shuttle took off.

The shuttle left the planet and was soon out of sight. The sandstorm slowly buried the camp partially. Night fell upon the desert several uneventful hours later, until a bright light suddenly filled the area, with it's origin from a large blue rift in the air. Shortly after, a big blue boot stepped on a shard of a visor that lied next to the red helmet it belonged to, turning it into smithereens. A guttural roar echoed through the desert the second later.

**Since I have work enough to do with the Bloodline series, I'm officially putting down the production of The Halo Effect, and it will probably never be updated again, at least not until Bloodline part I is done.**


End file.
